Over And Gone
by havokwolverine
Summary: Ragnar wants to know what happened to Athelstan in Wessex. He waits until they're back in Kattegat to ask. (SEASON 2-BASED)


**title:** over and gone

 **fandom:** vikings the series  
 **genre:** feels.

 **pairings:** mentioned ragnar/aslaug, focus on ragnar's crush on athelstan.  
 **summary:** ragnar needs to know what happened to athelstan in england. he waits until they're back in kattegat to ask.  
 **warnings:** references to athelstan's crucifixion. ragnar being overly intense about his feelings. athelstan trying to close himself off because feelings are confusing and painful.

"My beloved spoke, and said unto me: 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;"

— Song of Songs, 2:10-11.

Ragnar Lothbrok spends his first night home in Kattegat with his wife.

His second night, he seeks out Athelstan.

The twice-former priest is well-kept; he'd been sure to make that happen long ago, and Athelstan's small rooms remained untouched even during the horrors of war visited on Kattegat in the past months.

Athelstan is at prayer; Ragnar dares not disturb him. Instead, he falls into the thoughts that have consumed him in the past days, weeks, since he first saw him again.

There are scars in Athelstan's hands.

Ragnar has learned enough about Athelstan's suffering Son of God in the past years to know that that divinity wore similar wounds. He knows that this Christ received his wounds by being crucified, and that crucifixion is a punishment carried out still in Christian lands.

He wants to know why his priest has been so treated.

He wants to know whose throats should be cut for it, whose lungs should be ripped out.

But he waits. He waits until Athelstan rises, and then he says, shoulder against the doorframe: "Athelstan."

Athelstan turns. He looks much better in these clothes than he did in the monks robes he'd worn in England. Healthier. Less swallowed-up.

"Ragnar?"

He seems afraid. That will not do.

"Are you glad to be back here?" Ragnar asks, arms crossed over his chest. He inclines his head. "You have been missed."

Athelstan closes his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" Ragnar asks, stepping forward and uncrossing his arms.

"When you left Wessex to go home to find your family, and I didn't go with you. You looked back at me out of your ship. I thought you hated me in that moment." Athelstan looks down. "I did not believe you would come back for me when I was captured."

Ragnar smiles. "Of course I would. I promised you protection." He glances down at the arm-ring Athelstan wears.

Athelstan flushes in the low light. "I prayed for your safety."

"Thank you." Ragnar is not certain whether Athelstan's Christ cares much for him or for his gods, but he is here and Athelstan is here, and that is all he could have asked of any of them.

Rollo will heal. His family is safe and complete around him again. Even Lagertha is remaining in Kattegat for a week or so before she returns to her own lands. By all rights, he should be happy with his lot in life.

But there remains the matter of Athelstan's hands, his scars.

"They…hurt you. In Wessex." Ragnar glances down again, further, focussing on Athelstan's hands. "Why?"

Athelstan flinches. "I am an apostate."

"A-post-ate?" He repeats the foreign word.

"In their eyes I have renounced God, publicly. In their lands, the punishment for that crime is execution." Athelstan turns away.

Ragnar steps even closer. "But you are not dead."

"King Ecbert saved my life." Athelstan's voice is brittle, as though he fears he has betrayed someone. He is haunted.

Ragnar is not a gentle man, but here he reaches for Athelstan with tenderness. He lays a hand on Athelstan's shoulder. "I shall be grateful to him for that."

Their story is one full of quiet confessions like this, of Ragnar being brutally honest and Athelstan being afraid. Ragnar wishes that the fear was not part of it. He does not wish for Athelstan to be afraid of him.

Athelstan exhales through his nose. "I am not…"

Whatever Athelstan is not, he does not say. Ragnar picks up when Athelstan trails off. "Do you want vengeance, for what was done to you?"

"No." This much, Athelstan seems certain of. He does not shy from Ragnar's hand, but he does not turn back toward him. "I don't. What's done is past, Ragnar. I — I'm here. That is enough."

"Do you miss it? Wessex?"

Ragnar does not know why he does this, why he asks questions whose answers he may not like.

"I…I find I part with it easier a second time." Athelstan swallows. "As I said, this is my family now. My home."

Ragnar squeezes his shoulder, then releases it. "I am glad. I do not mean to cause you pain with these things. You should not be hurt again."

He will not, if Ragnar can prevent it.

Athelstan huffs out a tiny half-laugh of a breath. "You have been kind to me for so long."

There is an unasked question in the words. Ragnar does not know what to say to it. He reaches out with his free hand, puts it on Athelstan's other shoulder. "I do not see much point in being cruel."

"You are good at it."

"Are you afraid of me, Athelstan?"

"No."

It is not the truth but it is not a lie either. Athelstan has mastered the in-betweens, the spaces between truths and lies, and Ragnar wants to kiss the secrets from his mouth.

He does not. "Good," he says instead, face creasing into a smile. "I do not wish for my friends to be afraid of me."

Athelstan looks at him carefully, his head slipping sideways. "We are friends."

"Yes."

As much as he would prefer it was not a friendship but something else — something more like lovers, more like his relationship with his wife — he will accept that they are friends.

He thinks if Athelstan had not called them so in the woods in Wessex, he would have kissed him there and then, would have pressed him close and to every hell with the rest of it; he is not the kind of man who plans these things, but they merely seem to happen.

They always seem merely to happen.

"I am glad for it," he says. "You are important to me." His hands lie heavy on Athelstan's shoulders.

Athelstan turns, dislodging them. "I am not — I am _different_ than I was, Ragnar."

Ragnar cocks his head. "In what manner? You bear some new scars, and you are maybe more pensive than before. That is all you have shown."

"I have had…visions. Of things that are not there. I have seen — I have seen my wounds reopening and yet they do not; they have scarred over." Athelstan looks down, moves his head like a frightened horse. "I mistook an acid-scarred woman for the Mother of God."

There are stories told of men come back from battle who find themselves reliving their battle-wounds. Ragnar swipes his knuckles across Athelstan's cheek. "I do not care."

"What if I hurt someone?" Athelstan looks at him in fear.

"I do not think you will. You have too much kindness in you to bear it." This much, Ragnar is certain of. He cups Athelstan's cheek.

Athelstan looks at him with inscrutable eyes. Ragnar has never known someone so self-contained, so unreadable. Athelstan is subtler than men like King Horik, men like Floki. He is far harder to read.

If he chose, Athelstan could be the most dangerous man in all the North.

And Ragnar doesn't know if Athelstan knows it.

"King Ecbert saved my life." Athelstan says this quietly, like it is a problem. "He was much like you."

 _Did you fuck him_?

The thought comes unbidden, ugly. Ragnar is a jealous man, and he hates it. Athelstan is not his property, Athelstan is not his wife or his lover.

"He will be angry I have left." Athelstan exhales uneasily. "I don't think he will want to treat with you again, on that account."

Ragnar shakes his head. "Then we will fight the Englishmen again, no?"

Athelstan smiles for a moment. "Thank you."

"I am sure he is angry to have lost you, if he is as like me as you say. What did he have you do, in his household?" Ragnar asks the question almost breezily, swiping his thumb across Athelstan's cheekbone.

Athelstan looks down, his eyelashes dark against his pale skin. "He gave me books, Roman fragments. He wanted me to read them, to strategize for him."

Ragnar knows Athelstan, has made a study of his expressions and his mannerisms, and this is Athelstan regretful.

"I thought…Ragnar, I cannot begin to describe to you the _knowledge_ in those scrolls and books. It seemed as though whole _worlds_ were opened up to me in that room where they were kept." Athelstan takes a step back, pulling away from Ragnar's hand. He seems close to frenzy.

"Why are you so frightened?" Ragnar asks, because he wants to kill the fear.

"If I had not — if I had pretended I could not read them…Perhaps those battles would have gone a different way." Athelstan turns away. "But I was…I was so caught up in the knowledge I was getting and I wanted…I wanted to share it."

Athelstan is a good man, and Ragnar is not angry with him.

"He was so much like you."

Ragnar takes another step closer, slings his arm around Athelstan. "To his credit, or to mine?"

Athelstan freezes. Ragnar inhales, thinking perhaps this will work to distract him. Maybe if he crosses this line for moments, it will draw Athelstan's mind away from that which so troubles him.

"I wished — I wished he _was_ you."

Ragnar drops his chin to rest on Athelstan's shoulder. It is not a comfortable position, but he hopes that it is helpful for Athelstan. "You missed me?" he asks, almost playful in his tone.

"I feared for you." Athelstan's hand comes up to rest on Ragnar's forearm. It is the hand above which the gold arm-ring rests - Ragnar is stingy in the giving of rings, at times, and the gold one Athelstan wears is more intricate than any of the rest that he has given over the years.

Anyone who knows these things can see what Athelstan's value is - or at least, see that he has a great value. Athelstan has never intimated that he knows.

Ragnar presses his cheek against Athelstan's neck. "I asked the Seer about you. King Horik said he believed you dead, but I did not believe him. I asked the Seer, and he said that you were with a foreign king, who I knew. That is how I knew you were alive."

Athelstan's pulse beats near his ear, a little elevated. "I had only prayer," he whispers.

"It appears that was enough." Ragnar is little good at bestowing comfort, but he hopes that this may pass for it, when he pulls Athelstan closer.

Athelstan's hand tightens on his wrist. "So it does."

Peaceful silence for a long moment. Ragnar is curled over Athelstan's back like a shield. Athelstan is a rabbit-pulsed, tense thing, but he slowly relaxes, heartbeat slowing back to normal.

"Thank you," Athelstan whispers, and he presses back, molds against Ragnar's chest.

Ragnar lets out a long, rattling exhalation, his own heart skipping faster. He tries to hide it; at every turn, he has been rejected except as a friend. And Athelstan has enough troubles on his mind; he does not need to trouble himself with what Ragnar wants.

"I am sorry," Athelstan says. "I am sure you have other things you need to -"

"Not tonight," Ragnar mutters. "Not if you need -"

"Your wife, though -"

Ragnar lets go, abruptly, stepping away as if slapped. His wife. Aslaug.

Does Aslaug know?

She must. She is a princess. She knows things about ruling, about kings and earls giving rings, about infidelity and freedom - she freed Porunn to assuage Bjorn's guilt, she had been willing, years ago, to share with Lagertha. But she had been so cold when his eye had wandered since.

Capricious woman.

Athelstan turns around, looks at him with pin-pricking eyes. "Go to bed, Ragnar."

And Ragnar bleeds, obeying, which should reveal everything.

—

Aslaug is not expecting him when he comes to bed. She smiles, as if she knew where he had been. He looks away from her, ashamed.

"And how is Athelstan?" she asks, laughter in her voice.

Ragnar frowns, turns onto his stomach, pressing his face against the pillow.

Aslaug slides up onto her elbow and scratches the back of his neck as though he were some pet animal. "Is he well?"

"He was wounded in Wessex. It haunts - it haunts him," Ragnar admits, the words clumsy in his mouth. They are muffled by the pillow and they seem to stick, heavy and uncomfortable, against his tongue. "I made attempt to comfort him."

"With sex?" she asks, a wry, knowing turn to her voice.

"No." Ragnar sighs, petulant. "He would not have allowed it if I had asked."

Aslaug laughs and leans down, kissing the back of his head, near the base of his pony-tail. "But you have not _asked_ in all the years I have been here."

"Why are you encouraging this?" Ragnar asks, turning to look at her.

She shrugs. "He makes you happy, and he cannot bear your children. What risk is it to my position if you have him on the side?"

Ragnar sighs again. "You confuse me."

"Men, you all think things are so complicated," she replies, kissing him on the mouth. "Do you want to have sex with him?"

He rolls his eyes. "You know the answer to that."

"Then why have you not asked him?" She draws her fingertip along the muscles of his shoulders.

He frowns. "What reason would he have to have sex with me?"

"You are strong, and you look like you fuck like a god," Aslaug says, lips curling. "Which I can testify is the truth of the matter, but nonetheless, it is appearances that matter here. And you have made yourself very clear in the way you protect him. He does not realize, because he is not from our lands."

It strokes his ego, of course it does, but he also flushes with embarrassment. "Is it really so obvious?"

Floki knows, Ragnar is sure of it. It had been in the way he had mocked him before the gates of Ecbert's villa, the insinuation he put into the word _priest._

"He does not seem to know, but we women always talk. And laugh. It is endearing, the way you dote on him as though he were a woman himself." Aslaug kisses him again. "Do not be ashamed. I have seen the echo of you in your son, and your son loves a former slave as well."

"Porunn is not like Athelstan. It was her pride that barred the way more than her status."

"And Athelstan has no such pride?"

Ragnar shakes his head. "From what little I can tell, men do not lie with men in Christian countries. Fucking is solely between husband and wife, and for making children only." He thinks. "And their holy men and women do not fuck at all."

"What a fuckless world they live in," she replies. They are gossiping now, like old women at a well.

He thinks this is his favorite thing about her, about being married to her. She lives for gossip, much as he enjoys it. Lagertha talked politics, this is true, and strategy. Aslaug likes more the minutiae of everyday life in Kattegat; it makes her a fine ruler when he is away, and a fine conversationalist when he is home.

"I do not know how many of them truly obey their God, though." He leans in. "Their king first received me naked in a bath large enough for about a dozen men."

Aslaug raises her eyebrows. "The same King that kept Athelstan?"

"The very same."

"Do you think he and Athelstan…?" She is careful not to say the question fully, and he is grateful.

He shakes his head. "I do not think so." He pauses. "He said, though, that Ecbert reminded him very much of me."

"Maybe he suspects?"

"If he suspects, and has said nothing, that is as good as _no._ "

Aslaug kisses the furrow of his brow, and lower, and soon, he thinks of nothing but her and her body.

—

Ragnar watches as Athelstan slowly reintegrates himself with Kattegat. He is good with children, better still with servants, and smiles almost giddily at times now.

But Athelstan does not seek him out, and he does not seek out Athelstan — they are at an impasse that only Ragnar seems aware of. He sees flashes of Athelstan's scars, too; the man does not hide them. He seems to have given up hiding anything.

Ragnar sees Floki mock him, and grits his teeth.

When Athelstan walks away from him, and Floki sits elsewhere in the hall, Ragnar tails Athelstan to the wine. He can see that Athelstan has indulged tonight in significant amount.

"Do not drink more, Athelstan," he murmurs, covering Athelstan's hand on his cup with his own.

Athelstan looks up at him, first in fear, then with with a scowl. "When I am drunk I can avoid it."

"Avoid what?" Ragnar responds, cocking his head to the side.

"That Floki is right." Athelstan slips his hand out from between his cup and Ragnar's hand; it feels like a slap, but like an unintentional one. "I saw you watching."

Ragnar scowls himself, curling his hand into Athelstan's sleeve. "What did he say to you?"

"That I am unwanted, and that I betrayed you and your gods." Athelstan takes his sleeve back. He turns, trying again to refill his cup.

"Floki is a fool and a trickster and you should not heed him." Ragnar cuffs the side of his head. "Any betrayal you may have made was made to save your life, and I am glad for it."

"I am the reason Rollo is going to die!" Athelstan says, quietly, vicious, and turns away. He moves through the crowd like a snake, wine sloshing from the rim of his overfull cup. It stains his fingers like blood.

Ragnar follows him again. He disagrees — Rollo is alive, and will stay alive, and it makes no sense to say that his wounds are Athelstan's fault.

Athelstan leans against a wall outside, a shadow in shadows, curled in on himself for a moment before he throws his head back, drinking deep from his cup. He does not stop until it is emptied, and then he drops it to the earth. He drops to the earth as well, sliding down the wall to sit on the ground.

He looks so lost, barely a silhouette visible in the dark, and Ragnar goes to him.

He is always the one who goes. He hates it a little. He is always chasing.

"Athelstan," he whispers, kneeling down in front of him. "Rollo is not going to die. Floki is trying to hurt you, to blame you. I do not know why."

Athelstan blinks up at him, his blue eyes watery with drink and with tears. "But what if he is right? What if this, all of this, is my fault?"

Ragnar reaches out, curls his fingers under Athelstan's jaw. "Rollo made his own choices, and if he dies, the gods will ferry him to Valhalla. It will hurt, but all men die someday, no?"

"But if he dies, of those wounds — you would not have been nearly as intent on killing Horik's soldiers if I was not in Wessex." Athelstan's speech is slurred a little, his accent going thicker with the drink. "You came back for me. Why did you come back for me?"

"You are part of my household. Aslaug says I am insufferable without you." Ragnar moves closer, tips his forehead briefly against Athelstan's. "You are important to me."

Athelstan stares at him like he has said something incomprehensible. " _Why_?"

"You are gentle, and compassionate. You treat my children as if they are your own family. You fight like the bravest of warriors, but war is not your calling." Ragnar threads his fingers in Athelstan's hair. "You are impossible and I am fonder of you for it."

"You don't — you don't mean that. I am of little use to anyone, I am replaceable." Athelstan looks down at his hands, which he has curled in his lap. "I am strange and foreign and belong nowhere."

"You belong here. In Kattegat, in my household. You chose this time, you chose —" Ragnar feels his fear bubbling in his throat, and he snatches his hand back away from Athelstan's face.

"As if I could choose otherwise!" Athelstan turns his head to the side, his moonlit profile sharply cut in the dark.

"You are a free man, you make your own choices," Ragnar argues back to him, dropping back on his heels. He is vicious-sounding even to his own ears. "Do not act as though you did not make a choice to return here. If you regret it, stay in Wessex when we go again. Go seek King Ecbert's protections again, see if he will take you. I will survive."

He does not stay to witness Athelstan's reaction; he stands instead and stalks away.

Fear still bubbles in his gut.

—

Athelstan is truly a skilled warrior; in the last four years, he has become more than many men his age in the ranks of Ragnar's men, and still more men of his similar slender build.

"Ragnar!" Athelstan says, his voice a harsh whisper in the gathering gloom. It's reproving, and Ragnar realizes that Athelstan saw his distraction from the immediate battle — King Horik's betrayal, so easily stopped here in Kattegat, where Ragnar's family is beloved of many people.

Ragnar laughs, hard-edged mirth rippling into the air, and he fights his way back to the great hall; Athelstan guards his back.

They fight well in concert with each other, and it is easy to make their way to Ragnar's hall, where they wait for the king himself to appear.

Ragnar thinks he will reach happiness again very soon.

—

Two days after the death of King Horik, and one day after the installment of Ragnar Lothbrok as king, Lagertha finally leaves Kattegat; she has her lands to return to.

She invites Athelstan to stay in her house for some time, that they may reminisce and gossip like old women. Ragnar gives her his dirtiest look, and waits for Athelstan to decide on what he wishes to do.

Ragnar is not afraid, he would swear it on his life.

"Maybe in a few weeks, Lagertha. There is much to be done here in Kattegat." Athelstan presses her hand. "I wish you safe passage home to your holdings, and that we may meet again soon."

She smiles, and leans in to whisper something Ragnar cannot hear into Athelstan's ear. He blushes, and Ragnar is jealous again.

She leaves. Briefly, Ragnar remembers the days when they had been married, Athelstan newly come into their lives, and he misses it fiercely. He is happy now, of course, with his crown and Aslaug and all his sons, but he remembers loving Lagertha, and he wishes that Lagertha and Aslaug could have at least been friends those years ago.

Athelstan disappears down a side-street and Ragnar loses track of him. Aslaug sees his eyes searching, and she smiles. "Have you asked him, yet?"

"No," he mutters, and she laughs.

"You should."

"Someday soon. I will ask." He kisses her. "I am grateful to you for this."

She smiles and kisses him back. "I like to see you happy."

—

Another week passes. Athelstan goes back to the place near the waterfalls, and Ragnar follows him. It is both more and less difficult to get away now, when he is _King_ Ragnar, but he goes, and Athelstan is praying again.

Ragnar waits, but the waiting is different. His shoulders bear more weight and Athelstan is sunset-lit. He wants to distract him, wants to curl his hands into Athelstan's clothes and press him down into the grass and _have_ him in the gathering gloom of early evening. He wants to kiss and touch.

He does not reach out. He waits.

He is always waiting.

"I know you're there, Ragnar," Athelstan says, on the tail of his Latin mutterings.

Ragnar steps forward. Athelstan is rarely this direct, this certain of himself. He obeys without question, this time. "The sun is setting," he responds, apropos of nothing.

"Do you need something?"

It is not a question of need. He has what he needs: Athelstan in his life, in his household. Instead it is a question of _wanting_ , of desire, not necessity.

"I have what I need," he says. There is no reason to lie.

Athelstan glances over his shoulder to meet Ragnar's eyes. He is calculating something. It makes Ragnar want to ask questions, or kneel in the dirt, or press his lips to the backs of Athelstan's hands.

He does not want to be found insufficient.

"Then why have you come here?" Athelstan is immovable.

Ragnar reaches out now, lays his hand against the juncture of Athelstan's neck and shoulder. Athelstan winces away.

"Don't do that," Athelstan says, passing his own hand across where Ragnar's hand had been. "Ecbert used to do that."

The implication is there, and it turns Ragnar's stomach. He curls his hands into fists at his sides. "Did he do anything else to you? Anything you didn't like?" he asks, voice tight with rage. "Say the word and I will kill him myself."

Athelstan shakes his head. "He was not ever so overt as that, he didn't touch me like that."

Relief bleeds through Ragnar's fingers. "Good."

"You sound like you would kill him anyway." Athelstan turns around a little, his face lit by the setting sun. "You're _jealous_ of him!"

Ragnar tosses his head. "And if I am?"

"There's nothing to be jealous of him for," Athelstan says, turning full to face Ragnar. His brow is furrowed, his eyes gemstones set in his face. "After all, as you are you so fond of telling me, I chose you, didn't I?"

He starts to walk away, passing Ragnar. Ragnar reaches out and curls his hand around Athelstan's elbow, stopping him.

"Do you regret it?" He sounds desperate, even to his own ears, and hates himself a little for it.

Athelstan _stares_ at him. There is silence for a long moment. And then Athelstan's face softens, and he turns, looking down at the ground between them.

"I have asked myself that question too many times." Athelstan whispers like he's ashamed. "I don't regret it, though. I should. I've only brought you grief in these past months."

The fact that Athelstan can be so clever and so dense at once is probably the greatest of griefs, Ragnar thinks ruefully, but he just pulls the other man closer. "That is not true and if I or anyone else has made you feel that way then I am sorry and I will fix it."

Athelstan looks at him from under a furrowed brow. "You sound like you did when you asked me to come home."

"I don't want you to leave." Ragnar leans down, tips their foreheads together like he did when they were drunk. "I don't think I could bear it, to lose you again."

"Lose me?" Athelstan echoes, wonder in his voice. "As if I could go anywhere."

 _Ah, but you could_. He could, because he is clever and learned and traveled and beautiful. Ragnar says none of this out loud, even though he should.

Ragnar Lothbrok is, after all, a selfish man.

"You stayed in Wessex, and I almost did lose you." Ragnar takes his free hand and threads it through Athelstan's hair. "You could have died."

"So you could have." Athelstan's hands are clasped together in front of him. "I watched you sail away and thought that you hated me for it. And then you came back and did battle with King Ecbert and I was _terrified._ "

Ragnar strokes his thumb across Athelstan's cheekbone. "I don't like it when you are afraid or in pain. I have never liked it."

"You say things like this, do things like this, like I'm some woman you want to bring to your bed," Athelstan whispers. "I don't know what to say to that."

"Would you say yes, if I asked?"

And there he is, his question asked, his forehead pressed against Athelstan's, and his hands holding the other man there. There is no way to take this back, no way to hide the fact that this man has ruined him in the best of possible ways.

Athelstan breathes in, sharply, like he wasn't expecting this. "What about Aslaug?"

"She keeps telling me to ask you."

" _What?_ " Athelstan sounds absolutely scandalized now, the word a little squawk. Ragnar can't help but laugh some at it. "She — really?"

Ragnar strokes Athelstan's cheek again. "She said she likes to see me happy."

Athelstan blushes bright pink. Ragnar smiles, as gently as he can, and says, "And you, you make me very happy."

It's true, and it has to it none of the brutal honest risk of his many past confessions. It's just a truth he presses into the little space between their mouths. Because Athelstan does make him happy, because he is nearly giddy with joy even just to have had this, whatever will come of it.

Athelstan closes his eyes, as though he's not sure what to do with the revelation. "Are you going to ask?" he murmurs, voice shaking a little.

"Do you want me to ask?" Ragnar tries to be gentle.

"Please."

Ragnar steps back a little, to give Athelstan some space for deciding. "I should very much like to kiss you, first of all. May I?"

"Yes," Athelstan breathes.

Ragnar pulls him close again, nervousness rearing back in his gut again. He fits a hand to Athelstan's jaw and gently, gently, gently presses his mouth to his priest's.

Athelstan makes the softest, most broken noise that Ragnar has ever heard, and his lips are soft. Ragnar thinks he may never stop, and this perhaps is the reason he should have been more careful in where he placed his heart.

His heart, which is racing now, thudding against his ribs. He has initiated the kiss, but he finds that he is also the one who cannot breathe because of it. It's not even a good kiss, chaste and dry and Athelstan is being very still, as though he doesn't know what what to do, but Ragnar cannot get enough of it. Just the fact of its happening is sweeter than wine.

Finally, he breaks the kiss to breathe, his hear still pounding. He opens his eyes to find Athelstan staring at him, seemingly entranced.

"Was that good, did you like it?" Ragnar is still breathless, still nervous.

Athelstan blushes, but he blinks, bites his lip. "I don't know. I, I think I need to do it again, to figure out what I'm supposed to -"

He breaks off, looking down, flushing hot now with obvious embarrassment.

Ragnar smiles unsteadily, and slides his hands to Athelstan's shoulders. "Would you like me to teach you how to kiss, priest?" he teases.

Athelstan looks up at him, frowning. "Is that what this is?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why you're doing this. Are you doing this to - to prove something? To say, 'here, I've made a Christian holy man break his every vow for me!'" Athelstan steps back, wary now, and breaks Ragnar's hold on his shoulders. His eyes are hurt. "I know what they say about me, some of them."

Ragnar is going to kill every single one of them, whoever they are, whatever they've said.

"What do they say about you? Why have I not heard about it?" Ragnar advances a step, intent and willing to do anything to take the hurt off Athelstan's face.

"Oh, they would dare not speak of it where their _King_ could hear," Athelstan snarls, and he storms away.

This time, he's gone before Ragnar can stop him.

—

Ragnar prays to Athelstan's Christ in that clearing, staring at his own clasped hands.

"Please, tell me what I have done wrong. I do not want to hurt him anymore, and you know him better than any of my Gods," he whispers. "Tell me now to fix what I have broken and heal where I have harmed. I don't speak this language I have heard him speak to you and I do not know if you will listen to me, as I am not a Christian man, but I need to not hurt him anymore. I have done enough, please send me a sign."

The prayer hangs unfinished in the air, and then he remembers the word Athelstan always ends his prayers with, but has never tried to translate.

"Amen," he says, the word tripping unwieldy from his mouth.

He stays there, awaiting some sign that Athelstan's three-part God has heard him, but no sign he can understand makes itself known to him.

He rises and returns to Kattegat with a heavy heart.

—

Athelstan avoids him now. He does not look at him, does not speak to him, acts as though for all intents and purposes that Ragnar Lothbrok does not exist. And he does it as though it is completely normal.

Ragnar wants to die.

After a week of this, Bjorn approaches him.

"Did you have some argument with Athelstan?" Bjorn asks. The boy has grown strong, clever, and often wise, and Ragnar wishes he could have seen him grow.

"Yes," he admits, because there is no point in lying about it.

Bjorn raises an eyebrow at him. "You never used to fight with him."

 _I never tried to fuck him_. Another bitter, unbidden thought, and he has so many of them about Athelstan these days.

He shakes his head. "Do not concern yourself, Bjorn. It is a mood and it will pass."

"You are lying to me," Bjorn replies, his expression going flinty. "You did something, didn't you? And you don't know how to fix it, so you just sit there and let it fall apart. I have seen you do it before - you did it to my mother!"

Ragnar stares at his son, mouth dropping open for a moment.

"I could not have fixed what happened with Lagertha, you know that." Ragnar leans back on his cushions. "I don't know if I can fix this."

"What did you do to him?"

"I..." It seems foolish not to admit to his offense, but he does not know how to phrase it. "I think he thinks I am trying to mock him."

Bjorn raises both eyebrows. "What did you _do_?"

"I kissed him, first."

"I don't think that's what offended him," Bjorn mutters. "Didn't you and Mother offer to have sex with him once, when I was a child?"

Ragnar rolls his eyes. "He said he did not know how to kiss, and I made a joke, I teased him, I said, ' _Do you want me to teach you how to kiss, priest_?'" He pauses. "And then he became angry with me and he is avoiding me now."

Bjorn groans. "I cannot believe you are my father sometimes, you are an _idiot._ "

Ragnar looks over at him. "You are being very rude."

"He thinks you want to fuck him because he is a _priest_ ," Bjorn bites out. "He doesn't realize you have been in love with him for years and frankly, I am not surprised he does not know, when you say things like this to him."

"Who said I am in love with him?" Ragnar says, cocking his head.

"Anyone with _eyes_ can see that. You fell in love with him when I was young and it has only gotten more obvious." Bjorn shakes his head and walks out of the room.

Ragnar sits in silence, then scrubs his hands over his face.

He is in love with Athelstan. He is in _love_ with Athelstan. He is in love.

And Athelstan doesn't know. Athelstan has no idea, and thinks the worst of his advances and this, this is the sign Ragnar prayed for, come a week late.

He rises, and seeks out his priest.

He has a confession to make, after all.

—

"Athelstan! Athelstan," he says, drawing the man's attention at last, away from his book of Scriptures.

"Is something wrong?" Athelstan is brittle and closed-off.

The room is small, and there is suddenly no air in it at all. Ragnar takes a moment to catch his breath.

Then, he drops to his knees next to Athelstan's chair, as if to pray.

"I have wronged you and I am sorry for it," he says, quietly. He takes one of Athelstan's hands in both of his and presses his lips to the scar on the back of it. "I beg your forgiveness."

Athelstan takes a shaking breath. "Why are you -"

"I am in love with you. If I could take you for a spouse I would, I would give you anything, I would keep you safe and far from harm but instead I hurt you and I am sorry." Ragnar clings to Athelstan's hand, his words muffled against it. "I hurt you and I should have done this a week ago, I should have told you by the waterfall and I did not and I have hurt you instead."

"Ragnar, please get up," Athelstan whispers, fear trembling in his voice, in his hands.

Ragnar obeys him instantly. He doesn't let go of Athelstan's hand, though, his thumb swiping over the other man's stigmata. "I'm sorry," he repeats.

"I don't understand why you're doing this, what all of this means," Athelstan mumbles. He stands as well, taking his hand back and clasping both behind his back, shoulders staring with tension. "Please tell me why you would - debase yourself like this?"

"What do you mean, debase myself?" Ragnar asks, hands fallen limp at his sides. "This is an apology."

"You are a _king,_ Ragnar, you can't, you can't kneel to me. It's - there are men who would doubt you as a ruler and as a man if they saw." Athelstan turns away, as though he is trying to process all of it.

Ragnar drops to his knees again. "I don't care."

"You should!" Athelstan presses his hands down on his little table. "You should care about how they see you. Some of them - some of them would like nothing more than to have proof of the things they suspect about you."

"They will not come to your room to find it," Ragnar says. "No one comes here at night save for me. That is the truth?"

He hopes it is. He doesn't want there to be someone else.

"Yes, that's true," Athelstan whispers. "But I don't want to risk..."

Ragnar closes one hand over both of Athelstan's clasped ones. "We will close the door, and we will talk. And if you want me to leave after, I will leave after."

Athelstan turns around again, hands jumping away from Ragnar's. "You're serious?"

"Yes," Ragnar says, firmly looking up to meet Athelstan's eyes. "I will do anything you ask of me."

"Then stand up," Athelstan murmurs. "It makes me uneasy when you do that."

Ragnar stands again, and steps back to shut the door. "I love you," he says quietly. "That is why I asked to kiss you, why I would like to go to bed with you."

"You...love me?" Athelstan furrows his brow. "Like you love your wife?"

He struggles with that. Because the love he bears for Aslaug is unlike the love he bears for Athelstan, and also unlike the love he still feels for Lagertha after all these years. He inhales. "Not like that. But also very much like it. I am having difficulty explaining."

Athelstan nods, frowning pensively. "But it's not because I'm a Christian."

"No. I am not trying to bring you to bed because of that. I am sorry I made you think that." Ragnar leans against the door. "I was teasing, and did it badly."

"Teasing?"

"You said you didn't know how, and I thought it must be because you were a priest for so long. It was not funny, I am sorry." He turns his eyes away, looks down at a far corner of the room. He slouches one shoulder against the doorframe.

Athelstan does the most peculiar thing, then. He laughs.

It breaks the tension hanging in the air, and Ragnar stares at him, wide-eyed and wondering.

"I'm sorry," Athelstan says, gathering himself again. "I shouldn't have stormed away like that. You were teasing, I should have realized."

Ragnar pushes off the doorframe, cocking his head. "I should not have teased."

Athelstan looks around the room, as though avoiding his eyes. "It's - it's difficult, sometimes. I'm not supposed to..." His eyes land on his little book. "I'm not supposed to want."

"I am sorry if I have made it harder." Ragnar stays where he is, even as Athelstan seems to shrink back into his Christian fears. He wants to pull him close again, wants to _ask_ again. But he doesn't. He waits a moment. "Tell me what to do."

This makes Athelstan's gaze snap to him in confusion. "What?"

"I am tired of making mistakes, especially when it comes to you." Ragnar shrugs one shoulder. "I want to know how I can mend things between us, but I don't know what you need from me."

"What I need?" Athelstan turns the words over in his mouth. "Ragnar, I - I don't know what I _need_ , I shouldn't want or - or _need_ \- anything but your friendship." Athelstan makes a soft, pained noise. "And even that places you in a position of risk."

Ragnar inhales. "You said - people said things about you. What did they say?"

Athelstan frowns. "That you had taken me as some kind of...well, I daren't use the language they used."

"They thought I had you as my kept boy, something like that?" Ragnar smirks ruefully. If only it were that simple.

"They called me a...a whore. A whore-boy for kings." He looks away from Ragnar. "Some of them said I was using your favor to keep myself safe. I tried to ignore them. They said it was a shame I wasn't still a slave."

Another implication to burn in the pit of Ragnar's stomach, to curl his fists and make him taste bile. He pushes past it. "Did any of them threaten you?"

Athelstan shakes his head. "No. They were at least smarter than that. But they...they said that I was your weakness. That I would someday bring about your downfall." He pauses. "I cannot say it did not worry me."

"You are my weakness," Ragnar admits quietly. "As much my weakness as my wife and my children."

"I'm sorry."

"There is nothing for you to be sorry about." Ragnar takes a tentative step forward. "I would not have it another way, I cannot imagine a life without you in it."

Athelstan blinks at him, and swallows. "I hate to think they think less of you because of me."

"I don't care what they think. You make me happy, Athelstan." Ragnar takes another step forward. He can see that Athelstan is trembling and he hates it, hates the way that Athelstan is still afraid, that he still has reason to be. "And you know I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you."

"I know. I don't - I don't like putting you in that position." Athelstan clenches his fists. "I don't want you killing people for my sake."

Ragnar shakes his head. "Concerned for my immortal soul?"

"No, it's — I don't want to be the reason for it. Even indirectly." Athelstan sits back on his stool, looking up at Ragnar. "In some ways it feels like the blood is on my hands as well."

"You Christians are a strange people," Ragnar says, lifting his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. Then he crosses the room and cups Athelstan's face in his hands. "They think you are a soft people, but there is much strength in you. There is a strength in your mercy, I think."

"Th-thank you," Athelstan murmurs, swallowing.

Ragnar takes his hands back. "I will try to be merciful, if they ever try to hurt you, but I cannot promise anything."

Athelstan smiles, but it's a soft, secret thing, just at the sides of his mouth and glinting shyly in his eyes. "That's all I ask of you."

Ragnar harrumphs, feeling himself flush - of all Athelstan's myriad expressions, this is the one that most gets to Ragnar. That secret little smile, like only he and Athelstan are privy to some joke or secret, it makes Ragnar want to fold him close and kiss him softly.

"Do we understand each other now?" he asks instead, because he _will not_ ruin this again.

Athelstan nods. "I think so."

"You understand that I love you?"

This makes Athelstan blush. "Yes."

Ragnar smiles at him and ruffles Athelstan's hair. "I love you, and would like to kiss you again, among other things."

"I...I would like that." Athelstan stands, and they are in each other's space again.

Ragnar curls one hand around Athelstan's hip, cupping his face again with the other. "You were very still last time. You do know you can touch me, yes?"

Athelstan nods, his hands coming up to Ragnar's shoulders. He rocks up to his tiptoes and kisses Ragnar's cheek. "I know."

Ragnar laughs and turns his head to catch the edge of Athelstan's mouth. "I should have known," he mumbles against his skin, "that you would be good to me."

"You've been kind to me as well," Athelstan whispers. He tilts his head and kisses Ragnar properly, his lips still very still. Athelstan kisses like he has never done it before, gentle and a little bit uncertain.

Carefully, Ragnar increases the pressure of the kiss, his lips moving against Athelstan's. Athelstan gasps, lips falling open just a little, and Ragnar takes advantage of the opportunity, licking just inside, along the crease of his lips. It makes Athelstan tremble, so Ragnar pulls him closer, hand in the small of his back, just above his pelvic bones, against his spine.

Athelstan isn't fragile - no one is, here in Kattegat - but Ragnar treats him like he deserves gentleness, because he does. Ragnar angles his head downward, so Athelstan can put his feet flat on the ground again. It strains Ragnar's neck a little, but it's worth it when one of Athelstan's arms comes up around his shoulders, pulling him even closer. Their bodies are flush against each other now, and Ragnar wants nothing more than to do this forever.

Ragnar breaks the kiss for air, looking down at Athelstan. The other man's eyes are dark with desire, and Ragnar wants to kiss him again.

"That, I liked that," Athelstan murmurs, his hand pressed against Ragnar's neck.

"I'm glad," Ragnar whispers back.

Athelstan smiles and presses his lips to Ragnar's neck - he is a quick study, and clearly has seen others do things like this. Ragnar groans, and it seems to egg Athelstan on. He drags his teeth against Ragnar's throat, kisses just under the bolt of his jaw, just before his beard.

Ragnar moans, touching gently still, dragging his fingers up Athelstan's back and curling his other hand into Athelstan's hair, drinking in the pleasure of pure sensation.

Then, Athelstan starts to walk him backward, toward the wall. Ragnar inhales sharply, but goes with the movement as Athelstan kisses his mouth again.


End file.
